gmeltdown

This christmas did not pass without much drama for many Kenyans. Banks had for some days before the holidays sent what looked like panic notifications advising customers to change their ATM card PIN numbers. Although I don't recall being a targeted recipient of the " Change your PIN " plea by my bank, good old twitter amplified the message at some point on 23rd and 24th December. Bank with StanChart? Change your PIN tonight. Not later. Not tomorrow. Your money is only safe under your pilllow for now. — Jackson Biko (@bikozulu) December 23, 2012 As fate would have it, having been unable to scamper for the seemingly account-saving change of PIN, Christmas eve would be the day fraudsters would hit my account. In the resulting helplessness of things, where else to go but good old twitter to share the experience with the rest of the world? Just got my Stanchart ATM PIN stolen/changed and cash withdrawn. People CHANGE your PIN numbers!! — John Kieti (@gmeltdown) De...

Tricksters and dishonest people have always existed in our midst.  It is definitely naive to imagine that our new techno-savvy way of life is an exception to the age old social patterns. This afternoon, an M-PESA agent was a victim of a new line of M-PESA fraud. Here goes the story; this is factual and occurred on February 1st 2010 in a peri-urban setting about 24 kilometres from the Nairobi City Centre About 2.00PM, a lady and a gentleman who looked to be in their mid twenties visited an M-PESA outlet, claiming to be Safaricom supervisors. The two wore valid looking M-PESA badges and even carried M-PESA promotional material for the outlet.  The two inspected the outlet’s log books then left. Note: It is normal for Safaricom to send supervisors to routinely inspect various parameters on operations of M-PESA outlets. The supervisors usually wear Safaricom badges and often take with them M-PESA promotional material to the outlets About 20 minutes after the purported supervis...